These Voices, Advices and Queries have yet to be approved by Baltimore Yearly Meeting. Your comments to the Faith and Practice Revision Committee would be appreciated.
12. Integrity
Integrity: Queries
How do we seek truth by which to live? How do we know
it when we find it?
In what ways does my life speak of my beliefs and values?
In what way is my life out of harmony with truth as I know
it? Why?
Integrity: Advices
Integrity implies a harmony within, a music created
through attentive listening to expressions of God in ourselves and
each other. When we live with integrity, alone or as a faith
community, our words and deeds "ring true." We are able to hear when
there is discord between our values and our words or actions, and
we often sense when others in our community are "out of tune"
with their own truth, or when, as a community, we do not seem to
be following the same conductor.
When we live with integrity, our sense of self is lit from
within by the same steady Light whether we are with our family,
in meeting, or at work. When we live with integrity, we do
not allow fear or desire for approval to shape the face we present
to the world. We may express the truth we know differently so
that different people can better hear it, or we may be silent
because we feel it is not the time for certain words; but we are willing
to allow the Inner Light to guide us in ways consistent with
the truth as we understand it. Rooted in an awareness of God's
guiding presence in all times and places, each of us finds the
strength and nourishment we need to be faithful _ in the Psalmist's
words, "like a tree planted by the water."
Community plays a critical role in discernment. Integrity
calls us to recognize our gifts and our flaws alike with humility, helping
each other to "let our lives speak," lovingly, the truth as we
know it. When we live with integrity, we hold the imperfections
and dark places in our selves and our communities to the
Light, remembering that our mistakes and flaws may help us
understand the pain and burdens of others or even become a spring for
ministry. Living with integrity requires that we not "outrun our
guide." Rather, as Carolyn Stephens wrote, we do our best to "live up
to the Light we have," knowing that "more will be given" when
we are ready.
Integrity: Voices
The essence of early Quakerism is precisely in a demand
for complete integrity of the individual in relation to God, to
other people, to self.
Cecil Hinshaw, 1964
At the first convincement, when Friends could not put
off their hats to people, or say You to a single person, but Thou
and Thee; when they could not bow, or use flattering words
in salutations, or adopt the fashions and customs of the world,
many Friends, that were tradesmen of several sorts, lost their
customers at the first; for the people were shy of them, and would not
trade with them; so that for a time some Friends could hardly get
money enough to buy bread. But afterwards, when people came to
have experience of Friends' honesty and truthfulness, and found
that their Yea was yea, and their Nay was nay; that they kept to
a word in their dealings, and that they would not cozen and
cheat them; but that if they sent a child to their shops for
anything, they were as well used as if they had come themselves; the
lives and conversations of Friends did preach, and reached to
the witness of God in the people.
George Fox, 1653
Sing and rejoice, ye children of the day and of the light;
for the Lord is at work in this thick night of darkness that may
be felt. And truth doth flourish as the rose, and the lilies do grow
among the thorns, and the plants atop of the hills, and
upon them the lambs do skip and play. And never heed the
tempests nor the storms, floods nor rains, for the seed Christ is over
all, and doth reign. And so be of good faith and valiant for the
truth: for the truth can live in the jails.
George Fox, Epistle 227
We all need other people to invite, amplify, and help us
to discern the inner teacher's voice for at least three reasons:
- The journey toward inner truth is too taxing to be made
solo; lacking support, the solitary traveler soon becomes weary or
fearful and is likely to quit the road.
- The path is too deeply hidden to be traveled without
company; finding our way involves clues that are subtle and
sometimes misleading, requiring the kind of discernment that can
happen only in dialogue.
- The destination is too daunting to be achieved alone:
we need community to find the courage to venture into the
alien lands to which the inner teacher may call us.
Parker Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness
Christ's way of propagating the truth _ the way that
inherently fits the inner life and spirit of the gospel of the Kingdom _
was the way of personal contagion. Instead of founding an
institution , or organizing an official society, or forming a system, or
creating external machinery, He counted almost wholly upon
the spontaneous and dynamic influence of life upon life, of
personality upon personality…It was His faith that, if you get into the
world anywhere a seed of the Kingdom, a nucleus of persons who
exhibit the blessed life, who are dedicated to expanding goodness,
who rely implicitly on love and sympathy, who try in meek
patience the slow method that is right, who still feel the clasping hands
of love even when they go through pain and trial and loss,
this seed-spirit will spread, this nucleus will enlarge and create
a society…
Rufus Jones, 1916
Be patterns, be examples in all countries, places,
islands, nations, wherever you come; that your carriage and life
may preach among all sorts of people, and to them. Then you
will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of
God in every one; whereby in them ye may be a blessing, and
make the witness of God in them to bless you. Then to the Lord
God you will be a sweet savour and blessing.
George Fox
Note on the meaning of the word "cheerfully"
in the above passage:
Regarding the quote from George Fox,
"Walk cheerfully over the word, answering to that of
God in everyone": The word "cheerfully," in addition
to the way we use it, had another meaning in
17th century England. It meant "encouragingly" (this
is the way Shakespeare used it) as in our modern
sense of "to cheer someone on." If I were to paraphrase
a small part of Fox's message it might go
something like this: "Always be examples of your best
conduct and behavior where ever you are. Then you will
come to walk through the world, encouraging others to
do likewise." This is a very different message from
how cheerfully is usually understood in our time, but it
is much more consistent with the rest of Fox's writings.
Bruce Folsom, 1994
The truthfulness which we owe to God must assume a
concrete form in the world. Our speech must be truthful, not in
principle but concretely. A truthfulness which is not concrete is not
truthful before God.
Bonhoeffer, On Telling the Truth
Live your life on the basis of truth and let truth have its say
in everything, and let what is right be heard too. Let what is
just and holy be acted on, without any guile, fraud, or deceit…In
whatever work you do for a living speak the truth, act on
the truth, do what is just and right in all your actions, in all
your practices, in all your words, in all your buying, selling,
exchanging and commercial dealings with people. Let truth be your
first concern and put it into practice…Living in this power and life
of God in which you have justice, you also have truth and
equity and rightness, and these things become quite natural for you.
George Fox (modern English rendering by Rex Ambler)
Any great issue has transformative power, once we engage
it. Slavery led John Woolman through a lifetime of
spiritual transformation, of renewal in his own heart. Whether our
own faith is centered on Christ or other core beliefs, our journey
can be animated as Woolman's was by compassion and a love of truth.
David Morse, 2001
George Fox... felt the need for integrity in daily life. ...
there must be a correspondence between one's faith,
between what one professed on the Sabbath, and what one does during
the daily work week.
Wilmer Cooper, 1991
Integrity is one of the virtues for which Quakers in the
past have been praised. It is a quality worth having, but it is
doubtful if it can be reached by self-conscious effort or by adherence to
a principle….Integrity is a condition in which a person's
response to a total situation can be trusted: the opposite of a condition
in which he would be moved by opportunist or self-seeking
impulses breaking up his unity as a whole being. This condition of trust
is different from the recognition that he will always be kind or
always tell the truth. The integrity of some Dutch Friends I have
met showed itself during the war in their willingness to tell lies
to save their Jewish friends from the Gestapo or from starvation.
Kenneth C. Barnes, 1972
Friends consider integrity a way of life. In the stillness
of worship we come into the Divine Presence and open ourselves
to the Light; we hide nothing of who we are. In keeping with
that openness of spirit, Friends express themselves with honesty in
their dealings with others. Plain truth needs no
decorative flourishes. We speak with simple clarity to reflect in our
words the reality of our perceptions and thoughts.
Intermountain Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice
Dear Lord and Father of mankind
Forgive our foolish ways!
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.
In simple trust like theirs who heard
Beside the Syrian sea
The gracious calling of the Lord,
Let us, like them, without a word,
Rise up and follow thee….
John Greenleaf Whittier, 1872
For a Quaker, religion is not an external activity,
concerning a special "holy" part of the self. It is an openness to the world
in the here and now with the whole of the self. If this is not
simply a pious commonplace, it must take into account the whole of
our humanity: our attitudes to other human beings in our
most intimate as well as social and political relationships. It must
also take account of our life in the world around us, the way we
live, the way we treat animals and the environment. In short, to put
it in traditional language, there is no part of ourselves and of
our relationships where God is not present.
Harvey Gillman, 1988
A neighbor…desired me to write his will: I took notes,
and, amongst other things, he told me to which of his children
he gave his young negro: I considered the pain and distress he
was in, and knew not how it would end, so I wrote his will, save
only that part concerning his slave, and carrying it to his
bedside, read it to him, and then told him in a friendly way, that I
could not write any instruments by which my fellow-creatures were
made slaves, without bringing trouble on my own mind. I let
him know that I charged nothing for what I had done, and desired
to be excused from doing the other part in the way he
proposed. Then we had a serious conference on the subject, and at
length, he agreeing to set her free, I finished his will.
John Woolman, 1756
These Voices, Advices and Queries have yet to be approved by Baltimore Yearly Meeting. Your comments to the Faith and Practice Revision Committee would be appreciated.
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